Chemistry Professor Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
July 2005
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Madeleine Joullié, G’50, Gr’53, was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Academy fellows are men and women of exceptional achievement drawn from science, scholarship, business, public affairs and the arts and humanities.
Joullié, a synthetic organic chemist and an alumna, joined Penn’s faculty as its first female instructor in 1953. She is particularly distinguished for her pioneering research with didemnins, natural chemicals isolated from sea squirts. Her work has found applications in fields as diverse as medicine and forensics. Some of the synthesizing techniques Joullié developed are cited in science textbooks.
“It gives me great pleasure to welcome these outstanding leaders in their fields,” said academy president Patricia Meyer Spacks. “Fellows are selected through a highly competitive process that recognizes individuals who have made preeminent contributions to their disciplines and to society at large.” The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which publishes the quarterly journal Daedalus, is a learned society that conducts a varied program of projects and studies responsive to the needs and problems of society. New fellows will be officially inducted at a ceremony on October 8 at the academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.